https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Thumbnail_Event_April-27.png6281200ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-04-27 11:36:442024-03-26 14:49:13Science Advice Under Pressure: Public Conference in Brussels
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Thumbnail_Event_April-26.png6281200maria ronaldhttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngmaria ronald2022-04-26 15:00:562024-03-26 14:49:28Future of Science Communication Conference 2.0
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Thumbnail_Event_April-6.png6281200ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-04-06 10:33:232024-03-26 14:49:43Working Group European Research Area Meeting
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Thumbnail_Event_March-22.png6281200ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-03-22 15:49:502024-03-26 14:50:00Science Diplomacy, Diversity and the Global South – InsSciDE Open Conference Lisbon
On the occassion of International Women’s Day, we interviewed Dr Nafissa Ismail, Associate Professor at the School of Psychology, University of Ottawa and project leader of the ‘Women in Science’ Working Group at the Global Young Academy.
She discusses with us her experience as a first generation university graduate, her work researching the intricacies of the human brain, and how she is fighting back against gender discrimination on the college campus, particularly unconscious biases in hiring practices.
“Often I was in a room with colleagues and students sharing an idea and it was as though it wasn’t heard; then a male colleague would share the same idea and all of a sudden, it was a fantastic idea. The interesting thing is that I didn’t initially perceive it as discrimination. I thought it was my fault,” she explains.
We invite you to watch the interview, which is part of the ALLEA Digital Salon Women in Science Series. You can also read more about Dr Ismail’s work on stress-related mental illness here.
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/shutterstock_1962663475-scaled.jpg17072560ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-03-08 12:17:382022-03-09 09:27:02Discussing Academia’s Gender Problem with Dr Nafissa Ismail
The Board of ALLEA has released a statement on the suspension of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The statement reads:
In light of the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine initiated by the Russian government and supported by the Belarusian government, ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, has decided to suspend the membership of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
ALLEA restates the European Academies’ commitment to academic freedom and human rights and hopes that efforts to defend democracy and the rule of law will eventually prevail. Conscious of its duty to uphold these fundamental values and giving practical expression to the moral outrage of the academic community, the ALLEA Board decided to enact this extraordinary measure, in line with international sanctions against institutions in the two states.
The Board is aware that this step might have an unintended impact on individual scientists and international scientific collaboration, but it concludes that the ability of these academies to act autonomously and independently from their governments has come into question – and therefore warrants this decision targeting only the institutional level. This suspension will be reconsidered by ALLEA member academies in their upcoming General Assembly on 11 May 2022.
The full statement is available here. ALLEA released an initial statement in support of Ukraine, its citizens and academics on 25 February. A list of resources, including funding and hosting tools aimed at helping Ukrainian scientists, can be found on this webpage.
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Statement-pic.jpg539941ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-03-04 10:57:152022-03-04 10:57:15Statement by the ALLEA Board on the Suspension of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Today, the ALLEA Presidency has released a statement in support of Ukraine, its citizens and academics. The statement is a response to the ongoing military incursion by Russia into the country. ALLEA expresses its deep concern for the safety of our academic colleagues.
ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, reacts with shock and deep regret to the military incursion by Russia into Ukraine. We call on the Russian government to respect the international conventions on the protection of civilians and cultural artefacts and express our deep concern for the safety of our academic colleagues.
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Statement-Ukraine.jpg7311317ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-02-25 17:46:322025-12-01 12:59:36Statement in Support of Ukraine, its Citizens and Academics
“Because I was a girl, I was not expected to do science. I was expected to learn cookery and needlework”, says the woman who discovered radio pulsars and changed the way we look at the universe, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Royal Society, Royal Society of Edinburgh).
She is one of the two interviewees that we brought together on today’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Valérie Domcke (Die Junge Akademie), theoretical physicist and cosmologist who works at CERN and was awarded the L’Oréal-Unesco “Génération Jeune Chercheuse” Prize as a young post-doc, provides us the perspective of a young researcher navigating through today’s scientific system.
We invite you to watch the two interviews for a reflection on the disparities and commonalities of being a woman in science across different decades in physics. Happy Women in Science Day!
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/womeninscience.png4001200ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-02-11 14:12:382022-02-14 13:46:25Two Generations on Women in Science Day: Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Valerie Domcke
What is the current state of global research? How has the scientific community evolved over the past five years? What are the emerging trends in national and regional policy agendas for science, innovation and technology? These and many related issues are addressed every five years in a systematic and data-driven analysis by UNESCO.
The latest 758-page UNESCO Science Report “The race against time for smarter development” provides an inventory of global efforts to move towards a digital and sustainable society. On 9 February 2022, UNESCO and the European Commission hosted an online event that discussed key conclusions of the report and its implications for the European Research and Innovation agenda.
Global Trends
Between 2014 and 2018, global research spending has increased by 19.2% (compared to a 14.8% growth in GDP) and the number of researchers has grown by 13.7%. In spite of these promising figures, however, large inequalities can be found around the globe: four out of five countries are still only investing less than 1% of their GDP on research and the G20 continues to account for more than90%of the global research spending, publications and patents.
Source: global and regional estimates based on country-level data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, August 2020, without extrapolation
A striking trend identified in the report is that countries of all income levels are prioritizing their research efforts to support the transition to digital and green economies. This can be partially explained by the countries’ commitment to reaching the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. At the same time, there seems to be a strong realisation that rapid transition to a digital society is key to maintaining global economic competitiveness in the future.
“science is at the heart of our future and should form the basis for public policies that support the entire continuum from society to economy”
Importantly, the UNESCO report urges all countries to further increase their spending on science in order to address global issues such as climate change, food security and pandemics more effectively. During the event, Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, emphasized that “science is at the heart of our future and should form the basis for public policies that support the entire continuum from society to economy.”
The European Perspective
Although the EU remains one of the main players when it comes to producing knowledge, lower and middle-income countries are showing the strongest growth in research investments and output. The playing fields for fundamental research and commercialisation of knowledge are rapidly changing and the pandemic has exposed both strengths and weaknesses of European research and innovation.
Luc Soete, Dean of the Brussels School of Governance at the Free University of Brussels, commented that the global pandemic had a strong influence on how we perform and communicate science in Europe: “The crisis has fostered the green and digital transition across the globe, and promoted further involvement, investment and implementation of science.” On the other hand, Sylvia Schwaag Serger, Professor of Research Policy at Lund University, noted “there is still much uncertainty on how Europe’s massive investments [as part of the European Green Deal and NextGenerationEU stimulus package] will be able to make far-reaching change”, and warned against the effects of a possible economic backlash of the pandemic.
“we need to invest in changing our research culture and start approaching science as a global endeavour, rather than approaching it from the national level”
European and global collaboration will be instrumental in our race against time for a sustainable and digital transition and to fight current and future crises. A truly collaborative international research community can only be accomplished when global equity and solidarity are at the essence of our research policy agendas. As stated by Lidia Borrell-Damián, Secretary General of Science Europe, “[w]e need to invest in changing our research culture and start approaching science as a global endeavour, rather than approaching it from the national level.”
Gender Equality
Source: WEF (2018) The Global Gender Gap Report 2018. World Economic Forum: Geneva.
Strikingly absent from the discussion organised by the European Commission werethe report’s alarming conclusions on gender imbalanceas one of the major obstacles in realising Europe’s ambitious sustainability and digitalisation goals. Also in Europe, women still accounted for only one in three researchers in 2018, occupied only 24% of the highest positions, and make up a mere 12% of the national science academies’ memberships.
Particularly in areas relevant to the digital revolution (such as digital information technology, computing, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, physics, mathematics and engineering) women remain underrepresented, meaning that they risk missing out on jobs in a future that becomes increasingly digital. “[…] progress towards righting the gender imbalance could be compromised, unless strenuous efforts are made at the government, academic and corporate levels not only to attract girls and women to these fields but, above all, to retain them”, the report urges.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected women in science and engineering. Women in the USA and Europe have reported a 5% larger decline in research time compared to their male peers (and even 17% for women with at least one child five years old or younger), resulting in the publication of fewer preprints and peer-reviewed articles, starting fewer research projects, etc.
The report concludes that “[s]ome of the radical changes to the work–family balance induced by the pandemic may be here to stay. It will be important for these changes to be converted into policies which ensure that women do not spend a disproportionate amount of time as unpaid carers, homemakers and educators but, rather, have the time and the energy to make their mark on the science and innovation of tomorrow.”
https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screenshot_3-1.png8541237ALLEA Secretariathttps://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/allealogo-1-300x83.pngALLEA Secretariat2022-02-10 11:28:042022-02-10 11:49:13The Race against Time for Smarter Development – A European Perspective
Science Advice Under Pressure: Public Conference in Brussels
Future of Science Communication Conference 2.0
Working Group European Research Area Meeting
Science Diplomacy, Diversity and the Global South – InsSciDE Open Conference Lisbon
ALLEA Board Meeting
Discussing Academia’s Gender Problem with Dr Nafissa Ismail
On the occassion of International Women’s Day, we interviewed Dr Nafissa Ismail, Associate Professor at the School of Psychology, University of Ottawa and project leader of the ‘Women in Science’ Working Group at the Global Young Academy.
She discusses with us her experience as a first generation university graduate, her work researching the intricacies of the human brain, and how she is fighting back against gender discrimination on the college campus, particularly unconscious biases in hiring practices.
“Often I was in a room with colleagues and students sharing an idea and it was as though it wasn’t heard; then a male colleague would share the same idea and all of a sudden, it was a fantastic idea. The interesting thing is that I didn’t initially perceive it as discrimination. I thought it was my fault,” she explains.
We invite you to watch the interview, which is part of the ALLEA Digital Salon Women in Science Series. You can also read more about Dr Ismail’s work on stress-related mental illness here.
Statement by the ALLEA Board on the Suspension of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
The Board of ALLEA has released a statement on the suspension of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The statement reads:
In light of the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine initiated by the Russian government and supported by the Belarusian government, ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, has decided to suspend the membership of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
ALLEA restates the European Academies’ commitment to academic freedom and human rights and hopes that efforts to defend democracy and the rule of law will eventually prevail. Conscious of its duty to uphold these fundamental values and giving practical expression to the moral outrage of the academic community, the ALLEA Board decided to enact this extraordinary measure, in line with international sanctions against institutions in the two states.
The Board is aware that this step might have an unintended impact on individual scientists and international scientific collaboration, but it concludes that the ability of these academies to act autonomously and independently from their governments has come into question – and therefore warrants this decision targeting only the institutional level. This suspension will be reconsidered by ALLEA member academies in their upcoming General Assembly on 11 May 2022.
The full statement is available here. ALLEA released an initial statement in support of Ukraine, its citizens and academics on 25 February. A list of resources, including funding and hosting tools aimed at helping Ukrainian scientists, can be found on this webpage.
Statement in Support of Ukraine, its Citizens and Academics
Today, the ALLEA Presidency has released a statement in support of Ukraine, its citizens and academics. The statement is a response to the ongoing military incursion by Russia into the country. ALLEA expresses its deep concern for the safety of our academic colleagues.
You can read the full statement here.
Two Generations on Women in Science Day: Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Valerie Domcke
“Because I was a girl, I was not expected to do science. I was expected to learn cookery and needlework”, says the woman who discovered radio pulsars and changed the way we look at the universe, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Royal Society, Royal Society of Edinburgh).
She is one of the two interviewees that we brought together on today’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Valérie Domcke (Die Junge Akademie), theoretical physicist and cosmologist who works at CERN and was awarded the L’Oréal-Unesco “Génération Jeune Chercheuse” Prize as a young post-doc, provides us the perspective of a young researcher navigating through today’s scientific system.
We invite you to watch the two interviews for a reflection on the disparities and commonalities of being a woman in science across different decades in physics. Happy Women in Science Day!
The Race against Time for Smarter Development – A European Perspective
The latest 758-page UNESCO Science Report “The race against time for smarter development” provides an inventory of global efforts to move towards a digital and sustainable society. On 9 February 2022, UNESCO and the European Commission hosted an online event that discussed key conclusions of the report and its implications for the European Research and Innovation agenda.
Global Trends
Between 2014 and 2018, global research spending has increased by 19.2% (compared to a 14.8% growth in GDP) and the number of researchers has grown by 13.7%. In spite of these promising figures, however, large inequalities can be found around the globe: four out of five countries are still only investing less than 1% of their GDP on research and the G20 continues to account for more than 90% of the global research spending, publications and patents.
Source: global and regional estimates based on country-level data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, August 2020, without extrapolation
A striking trend identified in the report is that countries of all income levels are prioritizing their research efforts to support the transition to digital and green economies. This can be partially explained by the countries’ commitment to reaching the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. At the same time, there seems to be a strong realisation that rapid transition to a digital society is key to maintaining global economic competitiveness in the future.
Importantly, the UNESCO report urges all countries to further increase their spending on science in order to address global issues such as climate change, food security and pandemics more effectively. During the event, Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, emphasized that “science is at the heart of our future and should form the basis for public policies that support the entire continuum from society to economy.”
The European Perspective
Although the EU remains one of the main players when it comes to producing knowledge, lower and middle-income countries are showing the strongest growth in research investments and output. The playing fields for fundamental research and commercialisation of knowledge are rapidly changing and the pandemic has exposed both strengths and weaknesses of European research and innovation.
Luc Soete, Dean of the Brussels School of Governance at the Free University of Brussels, commented that the global pandemic had a strong influence on how we perform and communicate science in Europe: “The crisis has fostered the green and digital transition across the globe, and promoted further involvement, investment and implementation of science.” On the other hand, Sylvia Schwaag Serger, Professor of Research Policy at Lund University, noted “there is still much uncertainty on how Europe’s massive investments [as part of the European Green Deal and NextGenerationEU stimulus package] will be able to make far-reaching change”, and warned against the effects of a possible economic backlash of the pandemic.
European and global collaboration will be instrumental in our race against time for a sustainable and digital transition and to fight current and future crises. A truly collaborative international research community can only be accomplished when global equity and solidarity are at the essence of our research policy agendas. As stated by Lidia Borrell-Damián, Secretary General of Science Europe, “[w]e need to invest in changing our research culture and start approaching science as a global endeavour, rather than approaching it from the national level.”
Gender Equality
Source: WEF (2018) The Global Gender Gap Report 2018. World Economic Forum: Geneva.
Strikingly absent from the discussion organised by the European Commission were the report’s alarming conclusions on gender imbalance as one of the major obstacles in realising Europe’s ambitious sustainability and digitalisation goals. Also in Europe, women still accounted for only one in three researchers in 2018, occupied only 24% of the highest positions, and make up a mere 12% of the national science academies’ memberships.
Particularly in areas relevant to the digital revolution (such as digital information technology, computing, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, physics, mathematics and engineering) women remain underrepresented, meaning that they risk missing out on jobs in a future that becomes increasingly digital. “[…] progress towards righting the gender imbalance could be compromised, unless strenuous efforts are made at the government, academic and corporate levels not only to attract girls and women to these fields but, above all, to retain them”, the report urges.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected women in science and engineering. Women in the USA and Europe have reported a 5% larger decline in research time compared to their male peers (and even 17% for women with at least one child five years old or younger), resulting in the publication of fewer preprints and peer-reviewed articles, starting fewer research projects, etc.
The report concludes that “[s]ome of the radical changes to the work–family balance induced by the pandemic may be here to stay. It will be important for these changes to be converted into policies which ensure that women do not spend a disproportionate amount of time as unpaid carers, homemakers and educators but, rather, have the time and the energy to make their mark on the science and innovation of tomorrow.”
Watch video summary of the report
Useful Links
Report website
Read complete report
Read executive summary
European Commission Event